By Sarah Nanbu
I am not a tree-hugging, hemp-wearing, bike-riding, hybrid-driving hippie. However, I do care about the environment and living sustainably. And, I am voting for the Green Fund. The Green Fund will not stop global climate change but it is a huge step in the right direction for the University of Portland. The Green Fund will enable UP to be more sustainable and the best part is students will have a voice in how the money is spent. The idea of a student-generated fund to promote sustainability is not unique to UP. In fact, schools such as the University of Oregon, Lewis and Clark, Notre Dame, and Pacific Lutheran all have Green Funds. And Notre Dame recently used their version of the Green Fund to purchase a solar panel system, which will provide carbon-free electricity to their campus. I personally would like to see the showers retro-fitted with water saving fixtures and CFL light bulbs in all the dorms. Little things like this would go a long way in making UP more sustainable.
I understand that times are tough and we are in a recession. But I truly think that establishing a Green Fund now will ultimately benefit the University of Portland and us in the long run. The Green Fund will save the University of Portland money which means that our tuition will be to do more for us, instead of going towards things like energy bills.
As a side note, I would like to add that we would never see an ASUP senators sign pulled off its stake and thrown in the bushes because it is wrong and disrespectful. So why is it that the Green Fund signs have been treated so poorly? The University of Portland is a community of respectable students and I know we are capable of finding more constructive ways of expressing our opinions than destroying signs.
ASUP and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Sustainability (PACOS) are both in favor of the Green Fund. Now it is our turn to show that the students of the University of Portland are committed to making a better world though being more sustainable.
